Artists

Julia Holderness

Biography

Julia Holderness is based in Christchurch, New Zealand. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury in 2002 and an Honours in Visual Arts from Auckland University of Technology in 2015. She is currently working towards a Visual Arts PhD in practice-led research at AUT. Titled Ever Present Archiving: new methodologies for art histories, Holderness develops practices of fabrication, approximation and invention to interrogate archives and their construction of art-historical narratives. Her practice and outputs are often collaborative and she works alongside both historic and current artists. In creating narratives that might or might not have existed – encompassing artists, groups, movements, and exhibitions – her research practice deliberates on the role of fiction in both the collection and interpretation of material histories, and critiques traditionally held divides between art historical scholarship and artistic fabrication. Through the use of invented personae, artworks and exhibitions, Holderness traces alternative histories of modernism in New Zealand, whilst exploring questions of truth and representation in historiography.This archival installation practice privileges the decorative, domestic and design - categories often overshadowed by the dominant fine art impetus in New Zealand’s art history, and is concerned with producing a flexible version of the past that is fabricated out of endless copies, reproductions and influences.

Holderness was awarded a Vice-Chancellor’s Doctoral Scholarship and won the Glaister Ennor Graduate Art Award in 2016. Recent exhibitions include 'Florence & Florence: other textile histories' at Ilam Campus Gallery, 'Overlooked Details' at Bartley & Company Art, ‘Book covers – Textiles of the Bauhaus’ at Sanderson Contemporary, 'Gallery 91' for Scape Public Art, and 'The Group: homewares' which was shown at Objectspace and The National. Her installations combine textile and ceramic making with historical materials from art and design archives. Holderness’s collaborative work as Fitts & Holderness has seen her participate in exhibitions and residencies both nationally and internationally.